PLEASE NOTE: This guide is not intended as a comprehensive grow guide but designed to ensure

appropriate literature, experienced growers or reliable internet sources.

A printable version of this Nutrient Guide is available on our website - www.easyhydrogrow.co.za

NUTRIENTGUIDEwww.easyhydrogrow.co.za

Nutrient Guide for Vegetables and Fruiting Plants

Nutrients Guide Per 10 Litres of Water - EHG

GrowWeek 1 Week 2 Week 32.5 mls 5mls 7.5 mls

Week 4MixedCrops

Week 4Week 4Greens Flowering/

Fruiting10 mls 20 mls -

MicroBloom 2.5 mls

2.5 mls 5mls5mls

7.5 mls7.5 mls

10 mls10 mls

10 mls 10 mls20 mls-

After week 4 maintain that ratio until harvest. Increase Feeding rates according to the instructions. Flush at least every 2 weeks at higher feeding.

Base Level

A printable version of this Nutrient Guide is available on our website - www.easyhydrogrow.co.za

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOME HYDROPONIC VEGETABLE GROWING SYSTEMS.

WELCOME TO THE EXCITING WORLD OF HYDROPONICS! These instructions are designed for vegetable and herb growing in non-commer-cial hydroponic systems. EHG nutrients are perfect for all types of home systems, such as vertical gardens, tower gardens, auto-pots, dutch buckets or any one of the many excellent commercially available home hydro or aeroponic systems around.

EHG is a multi-part liquid nutrient, full information can be found on our website at www.easyhydrogrow.co.za. For the home vegetable hydro gardener, only the Grow, Bloom and Micro are needed.(Or Coco Micro if growing in coco coir.) The brochure on our website gives nutrient strength and PH levels for various plants but the home gardener usually grows varied crops so these instructions are designed for that situation.

There are basically 3 kinds of crops:

GREENS – Grown for their leaves, for example, lettuces, spinach, swiss chard, pak choi, kale and herbs such as basil or rocket. (The easiest plants to grow.)

FLOWERING AND FRUITING PLANTS – Tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, squashes, legumes, corn etc and fruits such as strawberries or herbs such as lavender. (The largest category)

ROOT VEGETABLES – The onion family, carrots, beets, ginger, potatoes etc. (Other than spring onions they are not often grown in home hydro systems.)

Basically, all plants need a balanced formulation of equal parts Grow, Bloom and Micro (or Coco Micro if using) when they are small. Greens should be switched to 2:1 Grow to Micro (no Bloom) when they are well established, to encourage leafy growth, and �owering plants should be switched to 2:1 Bloom to Micro (no Grow) as soon as they start to �ower. Root vegetables stay on the balanced formulation throughout.

Using these ratios will optimise production but many home growers want to grow mixed greens and �owering plants in the same system being fed from the same reservoir. If so, it is perfectly acceptable to stay with the balanced formulation of equal parts Grow, Micro and Bloom throughout and you will still get excellent results. As you get more involved in hydroponics you may want to run 2 systems, one for greens and one for fruiting plants and get the maximum bene�t but many people are very satis�ed with a mixed system.

BASIC HOME HYDRO NUTRIENT INSTRUCTIONS (For a mixed crop hydroponic system.)

The �rst step is to know the capacity of the hydroponic reservoir you will be feeding your plants from. If you have purchased a hydro system, the manufacturer should give you this information. If you don’t know, �ll your reservoir with a container such as a one litre or ten litre bucket and add up how many containers of water it took to �ll to get the total volume.

Nutrients �gures are normally given per 10 litres of water from which you work out how much nutrients you need. For example, if your reservoir holds 100 litres (10 x 10 litres) then you would multiply the given �gure by 10. (If it holds 50 litres then multiply by 5.)

Start very small plants and seedlings at a very gentle balanced feed of 2.5 mls each of Grow, Micro and Bloom per 10 litres of water. (So, 12.5 mls of each in a 50 litre reservoir and 25 mls in a 100 litre reservoir.) Circulate the nutrient solution through your system according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

After a week you need to replenish the nutrients. Discard the solution and re�ll your reservoir as before. Your plants should have shown signi�cant growth and you should now feed at 5mls of each, Grow, Micro and Bloom per 10 litres of water.

The following week increase to 7.5 mls of each per 10 litres and to 10 mls the week after that. (So, by the start of the fourth week you are feeding equal parts of 10 mls each of Grow, Micro and Bloom for every 10 litres of the capacity of your reservoir.) Keep this ratio until harvest.

THE SIMPLE PROCESS ABOVE MAY GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANT FROM YOUR HYDRO SYSTEM. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BECOME A MORE ADVANCED GROWER THEN YOU NEED TO CONSIDER THE FURTHER FACTORS BELOW.

PH (Potential Hydrogen) CONTROL

This is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of your nutrient solution. A PH of 7 is neutral, higher than 7 is alkaline and lower than 7 is acidic. A slightly acidic PH of around 5.8-6.4 will cater for most hydroponic crops. Using EHG as directed will lower water with a neutral PH to the right level of acidity and for a very simple home system you can get away with not being too meticulous about PH. (Assuming your water source is more or less neutral. If you are using bore-water it is often very alkaline and you will need to lower the PH.) The PH will change as the plants use nutrients but this is di�cult to predict and is one of the reasons the nutrient solution is changed after a week. It is possible to leave it longer but then the PH must be monitored (and fresh nutrients are never a bad idea). Bigger, heavier-feeding plants at higher nutrient strengths can cause more dramatic �uctuations in PH.

If you want to do hydroponics at anything more than a very basic level, a simple PH test solution kit or strips are recommended. They are cheap and easy to use and give you greater control over your system. If you have one, use it to check and adjust your PH every 2 days at least. EHG’s PH UP and PH DOWN (solutions for adjusting PH) are the best on the market and very cost-e�ective.

ADJUSTING THE BLOOM/GROW RATIO

As mentioned in the introduction above, the performance of your home hydro system can be optimised by changing the formulation to suit the plants you are growing, if your greens and fruiting plants are grown separately. This would usually happen at around the fourth week in the basic feeding plan. By this time greens should be well established and fruiting plants should be starting to �ower or very close to it. Instead of using 10 mls of each nutrient per 10 litres of solution, greens would change to 20 mls Grow and 10 mls Micro per 10 litres

and fruiting crops to 20 mls Bloom and 10 mls Micro. (If you have increased your total nutrient strength, as discussed below, keep the same 2:1 ratio.) This provides more nitrogen to the greens and more phosphate and potassium to the �owering plants.

INCREASING EC (Nutrient strength)

EC (Electrical conductivity) is a term used to describe nutrient strength. Good EC meters can be expensive and are not really necessary for home hydroponics. Using EHG at a total of 30 mls of nutrient per 10 litres of water (the week 4 onward formulation) gives an EC of around 1.2 in addition to the existing EC of your water. (Tap water normally has an EC of around 0.1 to 0.2.) 1.2 is a fairly low EC and this is a baseline. Some commercial hydroponic tomato and pepper strains feed happily at 3 times this level.

You don’t have to be too scienti�c for a simple home system. Just be aware that you can go up to twice as high as the baseline in the right circumstances. THE IMPORTANT THING TO BEAR IN MIND WHEN INCREASING NUTRIENT STRENGTH IS THAT IT DEPENDS ON THE PLANTS’ VITALITY AND RESPONSE. Feeding unhappy plants high strength nutrients will be counter-productive. Di�erent types of hydroponic systems and di�erent plants also utilise nutrients at di�erent rates and therefore you should have a successful run or two with your system before you try to push nutrients much higher.

The best way to explain is to use a factual scenario. Let us say you have followed the �rst week baseline schedule above of 2.5 mls of each nutrient. Your plants have responded well and are vibrant and healthy and you want to ramp up your nutrient strength a bit and go for a �nal strength of around 50% higher than the base-line. Feed at 6-7 mls of each per 10 litres in week 2 (instead of 5 mls) and see how the plants respond. If they respond well and grow strongly then go to 10 mls of each in week 3 and 15 mls of each in week 4. So, where previously you only fed 10 mls of each per 10 litres of water (30 mls total and an EC of around 1.2) in the fourth week you are now feeding 45 mls in total, for an EC of around 1.8. (A 50% increase.) Most greens are happy at this level, doubling the baseline strength or higher can be reserved for heavier feeding, fruiting plants. If you increase the nutrient strength and don’t see a good response from your plants, back o�. You can try again later in the cycle.

FLUSHING

A potential problem with higher nutrient strength is that it may cause mineral build-up in your medium. This is di�cult to predict exactly and di�erent systems will behave di�erently. To ensure it doesn’t happen it is a good idea to run clean water without nutrients through your hydro system at least every 2 weeks if you signi�cantly increase nutrient strength. With many systems you can �ll your reservoir with clean water when you change nutrients, run the system without nutrients for 24 hours, discard the water, and then mix a fresh batch of nutrient solution.

We hope that you will �nd this information useful and that you enjoy your journey into the wonderful world of hydroponics. There are many dedicated websites and forums for hydroponic growing with a great deal of excellent tips and suggestions for hobby growers.

EHG, Your Trusted Grow Partner